Alcohol

Red wine has anthocyans from grapeskin. Bolder flavor, paired with red meat, chicken, and pasta. 14% ABV. Cabernet Sauvignon, merlot, pinot noir, Zinfandel.

• Brut wine has no added sugar. A dry wine is not sweet.
• Port is a sweet fortified red dessert wine.
• Rosé has less contact time with grape skin.
• Romanée-Conti is the most expensive wine, at $10,000 per bottle. From Burgundy.
• Mulled wine adds mulling spices: cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, and optionally star anise, peppercorn, cardamom, and dried fruit.
• Pomace are the solid skins, pulp, seeds, and stems.
• Oaking concentrates flavor and adds phenols with vanilla or tea notes. Also softens tannins via oxygenation. Hydrolyzable ellagitannins protect wine.
• Terroir are environmental factors that affect taste.

White wine without grapeskin: chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Muscat (floral aroma), Pinot Grigio, Trebbiano. Lighter, paired with fish and vegetables.

• Champagne or sparkling wine is fizzy. The champagne flute is tall to retain carbonation.
  • Mimosa is champagne and orange juice

Whisky is grain alcohol over 40% ABV aged in charred white oak. Rye and wheat. Cask strength is 52-66% ABV. Moonshine is outlaw whisky, distributed via bootlegging.

• Bourbon whisky is made from corn and new barrels.
  • Tennessee whisky like Jack Daniel’s is made using the Lincoln County Process, filtering through maple charcoal.
  • A whisky sour is 3:2:1 bourbon, lemon juice, and simple syrup with cherry and orange slice.
  • Mint julep is 60 mL bourbon with mint muddled in 2 tsp water and 1 tsp powdered sugar. Associated with the Kentucky Derby and the South.
• Scotch whisky is Scottish malted barley or grain aged in used barrels. Johnnie Walker. Scotch and soda.
• Old fashioned is 45 ml whisky with dashes of bitters and water with an orange twist in a whisky glass.
• A Manhattan is 2:1 whisky and sweet vermouth with bitters.

Liquor is distilled alcohol. Made using copper stills.

• A rectified spirit is strong neutral alcohol. Everclear is 95% ABV.
• Vodka is traditionally 40% ABV from cereal or potatos.
  • A screwdriver is vodka and orange juice.
  • A Bloody Mary is 3:6:1 vodka, tomato juice, lemon juice with Worcestershire Sauce, tabasco sauce, celery salt, and black pepper.
  • A Moscow mule is 9:24:2 vodka, ginger beer, and lime juice served in a copper mug. Ginger beer is nonalcoholic fermented ginger spice with sugar. A buck is a ginger beer cocktail.
  • Cosmopolitan is 2:1:1:2 citron vodka, Cointreau, lime juice, cranberry juice with a lime slice.
  • A sex on the beach is 2:1:2:2 vodka, peach schnapps, orange juice, and cranberry juice with orange slice.
• Rum is 55% ABV from sugarcane or molasses. It traditionally passes the gunpowder test: gunpowder soaked in rum will still burn.
  • rum and Coke (or Cuba libre with lime juice).
  • A mojito is 45 ml white rum, and mint leaves muddled in 20 ml lime juice and soda water, and 2 tsp sugar.
  • Pina colada is 50 ml white rum, 30 ml coconut cream, and 50 ml fresh pineapple juice with a pineapple wedge. Served in a poco grande glass with a cocktail umbrella. Puerto Rican.
  • Mai Tai is 8:2:2:4:1 rum, curaçao (bitter orange liquer), almond orgeat syrup, lime juice, and simple syrup. Tiki culture.
  • Daiquiri is 3:1 rum and lime juice with sugar.
  • A dark ‘n’ stormy is 3:5 rum and ginger beer with a lime wedge.
• Tequila is over 38% ABV from blue agave. Mezcal is any strong agave drink.
  • Margarita is 50 ml tequila, 20 ml triple sec, 15 ml lime juice with salted rim.
  • Tequila sunrise is 3:6:1 tequila, orange juice, and grenadine.
  • A naked and famous is 1:1:1:1 mezcal, yellow chartreuse, aperol, and lime juice. Chartreuse is a 43% ABV French herbal liqueur.
• Gin is flavored with juniper berries.
  • Gin sour is gin, lemon juice, and sugar. Gin fizz adds soda.
  • Pink lady is gin, grenadine, and egg white with a cherry. Grenadine is pomegranate syrup.
  • Gin and tonic is carbonated with bitter quinine, a malaria prophylactic, and often sweetened.
  • Tom Collins is gin and carbonated lemonade with maraschino cherry and lemon twist.
  • A martini is 2:1 gin and vermouth garnished with an olive or lemon twist.
  • A tuxedo is 1:1 gin and vermouth with Maraschino liquer, absinthe, orange bitters, cherry, and lemon zest.
• A liquer is a sweet, flavored cereal spirit over 15% ABV. Descended from herbal medicine. A cordial is a spiced drink, originally medicinal. Schnapps is a German drink over 30% ABV.
  • Triple sec or Cointreau is an orange-flavored 20% ABV liquer.
  • Amaro is a Italian herbal grain alcohol digestif.
  • A shrub is drinking vinegar with fruit juice. Colonial era.
• Bitters are aperitifs containing herbs like cascarilla, cassia, gentian, orange peel, or cinchona bark. Derives from patent medicines.
  • Aperol uses gentian, rhubarb, and cinchona. Italian.
  • Angostura bitters use gentian, herbs, and spices. Caribbean.
• Brandy is distilled wine over 35% ABV used as a digestif and a fortified spirit. Cognac is a French variety.
  • Vermouth is a 16% ABV aperitif with added spices, herbs, or roots.
  • Sherry is a 17% ABV Spanish fortified wine usually made from Palomino Fino.
  • Sidecar is 50 ml cognac, 20 ml triple sec, 20 ml lemon juice with an orange slice.
• Absinthe is 45% ABV with wormwood, anise, and fennel.
• Baijiu 白酒 is 45% ABV from sorghum: Maotai 茅台, erguotou 二锅头
• Served “on the rocks” means on ice. Straight or neat means by itself.

A cocktail is a mixed drink.

• Simple syrup or invert syrup is glucose and fructose.
• A highball is a spirit and mixer (soda or fruit juice). A sour has lemon or lime juice.
• Long Island iced tea is 1:1:1:1:1:2:1 tequila, vodka, white rum, triple sec, gin, lemon juice, and simple syrup with a splash of cola and lemon slice.

Beer is brewed from malted barley. Ale is beer brewed without hops.

• Malt is germinated grain
• Mashing steeps malt in hot water in a mash tun to convert starches to sugars, producing sugar-rich wort.
• Wort is boiled with hops in a brew kettle or copper to add flavor and bitterness.
• A hopback filters trub debris using whole hops.
• Ferment using yeast then store in a cask or keg.

Other: Sake, rice wine, Shaoxing wine. Apple cider.

• Applejack is made by jacking or freezing cider to concentrate the alcohol. Jack Rose is 8:2:1 applejack, lemon juice, and grenadine. Colonial era.

1863 Great French Wine Blight caused by the grape phylloxera aphid. Solved by grafting European vines onto resistant American rootstock.